With the pitch at Spotless Stadium being so unfamiliar to opposition teams, Blizzard said the players were excited about facing the Melbourne Stars at their smaller Homebush venue on Saturday night, particularly in the wake of their rained-out game at Adelaide Oval on Monday.

"We were pretty confident that we could chase that score down against the Strikers in Adelaide," said Blizzard. "And we're really looking forward to getting out there and ruining a couple of other team's seasons in this game on the weekend. There's definitely room for everyone to step up in the next two games and get ourselves through to the semis."

The Stars squad is filled with international talent like Kevin Pietersen, Cameron White and Luke Wright but Blizzard brushed off suggestions any of them would be of special concern to the Thunder. "I think you could throw a blanket over three or four of them and they'd be identified as the danger men. Obviously Kevin Pietersen is definitely one we've gotta be wary of, but we've got a solid bowling line-up as well, so we're not worried about one person in particular, we just need to execute our skills, particularly early on in the game."

As for the Thunder's line-up, Blizzard identified big-hitting Englishman Jason Roy as the key man for Sydney on Saturday, which will be Roy's last game before being replaced in the squad by South African batsman Cameron Delport. "He's definitely shown that he can whack the ball all over the place - I think he nearly put a hole in a fielder's hands in the first game at Spotless, got caught at mid-off - so we're pretty confident that he'll be one of the X-factors that we've got in our team."

The Thunder are still hopeful of securing a finals spot with wins in their next two games, with Blizzard confirming they aren't content with simply improving on last year's disastrous season. "I'd be lying if I said I'd be extremely happy with the way that we've gone," said Blizzard, reflecting on the Thunder's BBL04 campaign. "So far I think we'd be content, but we've still got two games to really make it through to the finals. If we make it through to the finals, we've really had a great tournament."